China's football professional league only has more than 40 professional teams, and at most more than 1,400 professional players, in this way, each province will also carry out game thinking: "Our province, at most, can get two or three professional teams, at most seventy or eighty professional players, at most there are two or three players can be selected for the national team, but our province has tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of permanent residents, and our province has millions or even tens of millions of young people, so who should we cultivate?" How should this talent be chosen? Is it still necessary for our province to vigorously develop football? Is it still necessary to build so many football schools? Is it still necessary to carry out campus football so well? If our province vigorously develops football, vigorously opens football schools, and vigorously does a good job in campus football, this requires great investment, but after vigorously investing, what can we get? Get one or two professional teams, as well as dozens of professional players and one or two national team players? Then this investment is too worthless! Moreover, it also delays the future of other people's children! So, we might as well use the money we invested in football to build factories and open technical schools, so that children can have stable jobs in the future! ”

Although there is a geographical imbalance in Chinese football, for example, the number of professional players in Liaoning Province ranks among the top in the country, and the number of professional players in poor and weak provinces such as Yunnan Province, Guizhou Province, Gansu Province and Jiangxi Province is less, but when the strong football province and the weak football province play together, no matter how weak the province is, it will also be allocated some places, just like more than 30 people have discussed carrying a bucket of 10 pounds of water, some people position themselves to lift 1 catty, and some people position themselves to lift 3 taels. Some people position themselves by lifting 1 tael, and some people position themselves without any strength.

In addition, the introduction of foreign aid and naturalized players, for Chinese football, is also a very heavy blow, the demand for professional players in the Chinese football market is very low relative to the population, and then the introduction of foreign aid, especially naturalized players, for the Chinese youth and their parents who want to devote themselves to professional football, for their 'investment confidence' is a more devastating blow, therefore, naturalized players, is undoubtedly a kind of medical rush to drink and quench thirst.

Perhaps, some people will regard the above thinking as 'intrigue', let's regard these thinking as intrigue, but in the market economy model that can most revitalize an industry, these 'intrigues' game thinking is the most indispensable, everyone, every virtual 'economic man', they are thinking about the maximization of interests, the pursuit of maximization of interests, so that all talents can ultimately achieve the maximization of interests, which is the market economy.

Let's talk about the relationship between China's cities and the development of Chinese football.

The development of professional football leagues and professional football clubs is inseparable from the support of cities, and in the football development of each country or region, every city will also think about what role they should play in football, how much they should contribute, how much they should pay, how much they should invest, and what they can gain.

Many large and medium-sized cities in China have the strength to form professional teams, but even many provincial capitals at the megacity level are hesitating whether to maintain a professional team, such as Wuhan, Changsha, Nanchang, Xi'an, Harbin...... Not to mention other cities with weaker populations and strengths.

People do everything in the society to talk about seniority, the same is true of cities, cities, we can see it as 'virtual people', different cities facing an industry, will think about their own positioning, their own role, when those cities that are bigger than their own qualifications are afraid to join an industry, what should they do?

Even excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, China still has 31 provincial-level units, 31 provincial-level units, and only more than 40 professional football teams and 1,400 professional players. On average, each provincial unit has a maximum of 1.5 professional teams and more than 40 professional players, the national team has 23 players, which is not enough for a province, and the 31 provinces and municipalities in the mainland have an average population of more than 40 million, so many people, on average, there is less than one national team player, and there are only 1.5 professional teams and more than 40 professional players on average.

The province is like this, how can the city be embarrassed, a province can only be allocated such a small number of places on average, let alone the cities below the province, which leads to the lack of enthusiasm for the development of football in China's cities. Many people often criticize that Villarreal and Auxerre in Europe have only a population of tens of thousands, and their teams can also enter the Champions League, but many large cities with a population of one million in China do not even have a professional football team.

As of the end of 2019, there were 130 large cities with a population of one million in China, more than all developed Western countries combined, and the number of '500,000+ cities' and '100,000+ cities' in China is comparable to that of all developed Western countries combined. Let's talk about the big cities with a population of one million, there are 130 in China, but the number of professional teams in China is only more than 40, and the number of these more than 40 teams makes the 130 big cities with a population of one million do?

For example, Luoyang, Kaifeng, Nanyang, Shangqiu in Henan Province, Changzhou, Nantong, Xuzhou, Huai'an in Jiangsu Province, Handan and Baoding in Hebei Province, Shantou, Zhanjiang and Maoming in Guangdong Province, they don't want to form their own professional teams, the problem is that it is not their turn to form, where should they go to form professional teams? What is the position of their professional teams in China's professional league system? And what role should it play? And what benefits can they get by forming a professional team?

After some gambling and speculation, most of China's megacities with a population of one million have shown little interest in forming professional teams, because they don't think they have much to gain by doing so. This is true for large cities with a population of one million, let alone cities with a population of 500,000-1 million, and cities with a population of 10-500,000.

The number of cities with a population of 100,000+ in Jiangxi Province, China, is more than the whole of Spain, there are about 90 professional teams in Spain, and there is only one in Jiangxi Province, so cities with a population of tens of thousands in Spain also have the opportunity to form professional teams, but in addition to the provincial capital Nanchang, which other city in Jiangxi Province has the courage and interest to form its own professional team?

For every medium-sized city with a population of more than 500,000, their psychological appeal in football is to require the team in their city to become a top league team, even if it is a weak team; For every big city with a population of more than 1 million, their psychological appeal in football is that their team must become a powerhouse in the top league; For every megacity with a population of more than 5 million, their psychological appeal in football is to demand that their team must become a giant in the top league and a strong contender for the championship; If the psychological demands are not met in the football league system, then it is impossible for all cities to develop football with all their strength.

Moreover, a football league system can only have a maximum of three '5 million+ population megacities' in the country or region where it is located, why? Because, this is determined by the 'one mountain does not tolerate four tigers theory', here, the author changes one mountain does not tolerate two tigers, and changes one mountain is better than four tigers. There can be a maximum of three 'tigers' in a mountain, and if there are too many 'tigers', it will seriously affect the 'ecological balance' in the mountain.

For example, to build a 'single football league system', in the area where the football league system is located, with the three megacities of Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang, it is already the limit of the number of megacities, with the three megacities of Shanghai, Nanjing and Suzhou, as well as the three megacities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Xiang. The three megacities of Hong Kong, with the three megapolitans of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, are already the limit of the number of megacities, and one more will seriously affect the 'ecological balance' of this football league system. There are about 20 'megacities' with a population of more than 5 million in China, so many megacities are crammed into a football league system, and all the megacities will not find their own positioning, and they will not dare to go all out to develop football.

Therefore, it can be said that although China nominally has thousands of '100,000+ population cities', but in fact, the vast majority of these cities are completely insulated from professional football, and in the face of football, the vast majority of cities in China will choose to retreat, of course, it is not excluded that a very small number of cities will swim against the current, although these very few cities are heroic enough, but for the football industry of the whole country, it is also useless, because the whole country only needs so many professional teams, large and medium-sized cities and small cities' 'Swimming against the current', what about the professional league? What about the National Football Federation?

Actually, there is a way, and that is to increase the number of professional teams, of course, this issue is beyond the scope of this chapter, and in the next chapter, the author will discuss this issue in detail, so if you want to know what happens next, let's break it down next time.